Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/834

Rh 798 E X C E X In the year ended 31st March 1866, when the larger number of the duties had been abolished, the net revenue from excise was 18,332,868; and in the year ended same date 1877, when excise for some years had been almost wholly confined to British spirits and malt liquors, the net revenue was j27,6Sl,523. The following are the general items of the excise revenue in the latter year : Chicory 2,942 Licences 3,548,557 Malt 8,040,378 Railways 728,718 Spirits, homemade 14,873,165 Sugar, used in brewing 487, 763 Total, 27,681,523 So large a revenue from so few sources indicates high duties, and the excise on spirits in particular has been maintained during many years at a rate that would have astonished the people of last century, and yet without any of the evils incident to heavy fiscal exaction. There is a check, which has been often exemplified, to the increase of the rate of excise in the encouragement it gives to illicit manufacture, and the consequent defeat of its object, viz., increase of revenue. The high rates of 11s. 8|d. per gallon in England, 6s. 2d. in Scotland, and 5s. 7d. in Ireland, to which the excise on home-made spirits was increased at the close of the great wars, gave rise to so much evasion that &quot; more than one-half of the spirits actually consumed in Scotland and Ireland,&quot; as we learn from an official source, &quot; were supplied by the smuggler.&quot; The duties were reduced to 7s. per gallon in England, and to 2s. 4|d. in both the other countries. &quot; The result of these changes was a most surprising increase of legally made spirits. In 1820 the quantity made in the United Kingdom, and retained for home consumption, was 9,600,000 gallons. In 1826 &quot; two years after the change of duties &quot; it was 18,200,000 &quot; (First Report of Commissioners of Inland Revenue, 1857). At subsequent periods, when the duties were again moderately increased, it was found that there was a sharp limit to the process, and that the excise on spirits could not be advanced much beyond 3s. 4d. in Scotland and Ireland without a revival of the old evils and a decline of revenue; while in England more than 7s. encouraged adulteration, and much higher prices than were justified by the duty and other trade charges. Later experience shows that this check is elastic. Since 1860 the excise on home-made spirits has been 10s. per gallon uniformly in the three kingdoms, and yet in no previous period have there been fewer complaints of smuggling or illicit distillation. This result is ascribable to various causes. The increase of employment, higher wages for legitimate labour, the opening of all parts of the country by means of communication, the greater sway of the law, and the greater influence of habits of order, must have dis couraged the dark though tempting business of smuggling quite as much or more than the enormously high excise encouraged it. The excise service itself has also been much improved, and by simple mechanical provisions in the dis tilleries much less supervision of officers is requisite, with greater security against fraud than in former times. The exemption from duty of methylated spirit, used extensively in &quot; French polishing &quot; and many other arts, has likewise had a beneficial effect in stamping out illicit distillation. The spirit of wine, or pure alcohol of the druggists, how ever, is still almost necessarily subject to duty, though it were certainly desirable that in tinctures and other medicaments incapable of being abused as potable liquors, it should be free of tax. But permission to prepare tinctures in bond, in quantities of not less than nine gallons, has not as yet been taken advantage of to any extent. In the export of spirit of wine a rebate of dutv is allowed. The duty on malt, like that on spirits, has also for somo years been uniform in the United Kingdom, at the rate of 2s. 7|d. per bushel, with a further duty on brewers of 12s. 6d. for every 12 J quarters mashed, or, what is held equivalent, every 50 barrels of 36 gallons brewed. The duty on each gallon of ale is thus barely one and seven- eighths of a penny a very lenient excise compared with the 10s. per gallon on spirits. It might be supposed that when the duty on spirits in Scotland and Ireland was made as high as in England, a certain equality should have been established in the incidence of taxation on the liquors most generally used in the several countries. But the legislature has favoured the milder fermented liquors with the view of promoting temperance in all parts of the kingdom, irrespec tive of taste, habit, or climate. How far this good intention has been realized is a question aside from these explana tory remarks on excise. It has only to be observed that while the consumption of brewed liquors has been increas ing in Scotland, the consumption of distilled spirits in England has been increasing in a still greater proportion. The following are the official returns of spirits and malt charged with duty in the three kingdoms in 1867 and 1876 : England. Scotland. Ireland. 18C7. 1876. 1867. 1876. 1867. 1876. Spirits at proof, ) gallons j&quot; Malt, bushels 9,170,561 43,608,570 13,368,096 54,161,922 7,144,144 2,381,501 9,193,608 3 021,S91 6,377,648 2,499,366 8,156,743 3,342,869 The abolition of many of the old excise duties, and con sequent simplification of the department, prepared the way for an administrative reform, by which the three revenue branches of excise, stamps, and taxes were placed under the superintendence of one board of commissioners, and included in the general description of inland revenue. This was accomplished in 1848, and the board of excise left its old head quarters in Gresham House and was merged in the new body in Somerset House, by which the colle tion and management of the whole inland revenue has Since been directed. The provisions for the consolidation and guidance of the board of inland revenue are embodied in the Act 12 Viet. cap. 1. The numerous statutes of excise, well annotated, have been collected and published under the authority of the commissioners of inland revenue, in one volume (1873). (R. so.) EXCOMMUNICATION, the highest ecclesiastical cen sure, is the judicial exclusion of a baptised person from the fellowship of the visible church of Christ. As part of the discipline of the church it is based on the precept of Christ (Mat. xvi. 19. xviii. 15-18; John xx. 23), and on apostolic example (1 Cor. v. 5 ; 1 Tim. i. 20, &c.). These and the other texts, however, bearing, or supposed to bear, on the subject of excommunication, have not by any means been uniformly interpreted; and the usages ostensibly based on them have differed accordingly. The praxis of Chris tian discipline, moreover, has never been wholly inde pendent of Jewish and pagan influences; and its variations cannot be. adequately explained unless account be taken of several non-Christian analogues of excommunication. Among other pagan analogues may be mentioned the Greek Xepviftwv elp-yta-Oai (Demos. 505, 14), with its consequences (J^sch., Ghoeph, 283; Eum. 625 f. ; Soph., (Ed*Tyr. 236 ff. ) ; the Roman exsecratio and dirts devotio ; the awful power which the Druids claimed of excluding from the sacrifices (Caes., B. G., vi. 13). But more influential than any of these has been the ancient Jewish practice. The word used in the New Testament to describe an ex communicated person, ai dOe/j.a (1 Cor. xvi. 22 ; Gal. i. 8, 9 ; Rom. ix. 3), is the constant LXX. rendering of the Hebrew ETp ( see ANATHEMA). This word (herem), in its